Global Warming Is Crap!

This is unexpected because Steve trained as an environmental engineer at UC Davis.

But he’s serious. “There are 100,000 scientists out there who are saying it’s total crap too, but they get shunned, swept under the carpet because all this ‘global warming’ stuff is just money-making scare tactics. They prevent the opposing view from ever getting a fair hearing.”

Steve. What a contradiction. I thought he’d be a global-warming shoo-in, a great first interview on my mission to find out what green San Diegans are doing, post-Copenhagen, to save the world. To undo — uninvent — global warming. Because it turns out (who knew?) that San Diego invented global warming, or at least discovered a way of understanding it.Just over 50 years ago, in March 1958, Charles Keeling of UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography set up camp on the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. His idea was to take daily measurements of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, to see if that number was increasing as a result of humanity’s use of fossil fuels.

And over the course of 50 years, the figures tell us it was. Keeling’s graph does one sexy curve up, up, and up. Each notch equals more CO2 in every molecule of air. The Keeling curve “marked a key moment in American science history,” says Scripps, commemorating the anniversary in an article on its website. It’s “become one of the iconic images of science, rivaling the double helix, or Darwin’s sketches of finches…. It turned speculations about increasing CO2 from theory into fact.”

So the question is: With all the urgent calls from Copenhagen, can San Diego help lead the world back from the brink? It turns out that our fair city bristles with experts and activists, from Keeling’s son Ralph, also a climate scientist at UCSD, to Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who discovered the “ABC” — atmospheric brown clouds — clouds loaded with industrial soot that cause a reduction in solar radiation at the ocean surface.

The problem is, all the UCSD/Scripps people involved with Copenhagen are apparently too busy to talk. Or, as in the case of Ralph Keeling, too apparently elitist. He didn’t think the Reader a newspaper worth speaking to (and we wonder why UCSD can’t shake its town/gown image problems).

Which started me thinking. We need people who are actually doing something, not just forever analyzing the problem. From the Maldives drowning, to the crows invading San Diego (until recently, their southernmost limit was Carlsbad), to some pretty wild fire seasons, there is plenty of evidence that it’s roll-up-your-sleeves time.

So here are a half-dozen San Diegans who decided not to wait for the arguments to end.

The man who has looked into the abyss: “For years, I was a voice in the wilderness,” says Walter Oechel, a distinguished professor of biology at San Diego State. “I warned of this coming crisis.” He doesn’t hold up much hope for planet earth on its present trajectory. “The tipping point, our chance to avoid damaging change, passed in 2002, 2003. Now it’s a question of damage control.”

We’re sitting in the old (1941) Faculty Staff Center on campus, one of the original buildings of San Diego State, during a noisy lunchtime. The place is filled with staff members, eating, chatting, heading over to give orders to a chef who stands by the well-stocked buffet. The chef slices slivers of roast beef, serves up healthy sides. If Earth is the Titanic, SDSU staff are going down in style.

I’ve come to see Oechel because he’s a legend in green circles. Long before most, he was studying the tundra in Alaska and Iceland for signs that it was about to begin defrosting. He’s also known for resisting corporate pressures to play ball and stay quiet. He’s authored pioneering papers detailing how a few degrees’ warming is causing the Arctic tundra to change from a reliable frozen carbon sink to a potential carbon bomb, releasing thousands of years’ worth of stored carbon in short order. After he published that, he says, the Department of Energy cut $500,000 from his research grant in 1992. Two years later, when he published a paper demonstrating that higher CO2 levels don’t stimulate ecosystems long-term, a second $500,000 was taken away. The last $300,000 of his D.O.E. grant was withdrawn after another paper on carbon and global warming came out.

But he has hung in there, all the while training another generation of ecophysiologists like himself.

“The poles are the radiators for the planet,” Oechel says. “They radiate energy to outer space because of the reflections from snow, the clear sky, the low humidity. They’re net exporters of energy to space, while the mid-latitudes and the equator are net importers of energy. The Arctic has become our canary in the coal mine.”

But his contribution to the Copenhagen debate boils down to one word: population.

“I’m unaware of anyone dealing with this double-edged sword of an increasing population and an increasing resource use.” We are approaching the Perfect Storm, he says: Just as Earth reaches her limits of tolerance for carbon emissions, the developing world is about to explode in fossil-fuel-driven consumerism, led by China and India. “Over the 30 years I’ve been involved in climate-change research, China has gone from a per capita CO2 emission of 1/32 of that of America to about 1/3. I’m not picking on China. Most of the developing world wants to develop, and if the developing world reaches just 1/3 the U.S.’s resource use — and if you apply that to the current population of almost 7 billion, let alone a likely future population of 13 billion or more — it just explodes in terms of CO2 emissions and resource use.”

Oechel is part of the first generation of eco-academics who’ve had to muscle their way into an academe (along with their corporate backers) not ready for them.

“My formal training is as an ecophysiologist,” he says. “Since the late ’70s, the focus of my research has been on the impact of increasing atmospheric CO2 on natural ecosystems. For instance, the new estimates for the Arctic now are that there may be 1.7 thousand gigatons of carbon in the upper three meters of soil. If any significant fraction of that came out as CO2 and methane, it would have a huge perturbation on existing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Because the total atmospheric CO2 now is less than 800 gigatons. So there’s a huge potential impact of that organic matter being oxidized and released to the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.”

Comments

Great article. I now know not to buy Big Red anymore. Always appreciate it when someone lets me know where my consumer dollars are being spent. Sounds like Steve has his s*** together. Also sounds like Gore is going to get richer because of stupid people who depend on their politics instead of their brain.

I have a hard time believing anything Big Science says anymore. The scientific community is home to some of the the worst money-grubbing whores on earth. These global warming/climate change types created and gold mine of funding by selling fear. And they'll do anything to keep the $$ coming, including fudging the data and actively silencing other view points. I applaud Steve Wampler for calling these people out.

Is this what you two got out of it? Did you really read the article? Manson, who wrote it, meant to present the issue from a variety of perspectives that seem to boil down to several crucial prescriptions: We need to control population, control emissions, and educate, as well as cultivate our own gardens--this latter point may escape you if you haven't read Voltaire's Candide: In the context of the article, it means that we haven't gotten the big solutions to the big problems yet, but it doesn't mean that we should give up on trying to change things locally, especially if we can develop technology to help us adapt to the increase of heat and radiation implicated by global warming.

To conclude from this article that global warming is not a fact is to say that you want to hide your heads in the sand, and let someone else take care of it. You create this monster of "Big Science" to counteract the monster you think has been created, of "Global Warming." For some people, the only way to grapple with science, since they can't read or understand its conclusions, is to do what they were taught in Sunday school,--create more mythical monsters to slay. Pathetic. Get an education, and learn to read critically. I never hear you talk about population overgrowth, Pete, while you moan about how global warming is just a myth. That is because you have no clue--if you'd gone to college, you might understand a bit more what's at stake.

The attitudes in comments #1 and 2 might be summed up best in this snippet from the article, no doubt misread by both commenters:

"Somebody’s got to step back and say, ‘Look, we’ve got a problem which goes well beyond these issues on the surface.’ And it’s not that we couldn’t do something. It’s just that there appears to be no political will to do it and very little education and information, so people don’t even realize where we are and where we’re headed.”"

As soon as I read,
"Steve. What a contradiction. I thought he’d be a global-warming shoo-in, a great first interview on my mission to find out what green San Diegans are doing, post-Copenhagen, to save the world. To undo — uninvent — global warming. Because it turns out (who knew?) that San Diego invented global warming, or at least discovered a way of understanding it.Just over 50 years ago, in March 1958, Charles Keeling of UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography set up camp on the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. His idea was to take daily measurements of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, to see if that number was increasing as a result of humanity’s use of fossil fuels.

And over the course of 50 years, the figures tell us it was. Keeling’s graph does one sexy curve up, up, and up. Each notch equals more CO2 in every molecule of air. The Keeling curve “marked a key moment in American science history,” says Scripps, commemorating the anniversary in an article on its website. It’s “become one of the iconic images of science, rivaling the double helix, or Darwin’s sketches of finches…. It turned speculations about increasing CO2 from theory into fact.”,
I knew this whole article, with the exception of Steve's viewpoint, was going to be more propaganda on Global Warming.

I admit that Global Warming DOES exist. It exists along with Global Cooling. 50 years ago, there were a hell of alot less people on this planet. The Earth has survived much worse things than humans could ever dream up to throw at it. The Earth itself IS a recycler. I'm not advocating throwing your car battery in the nearest lake. I am however advocating that we stop and track the money flow when it comes to "going green". All this green talk started with the braindead hippies in the 60's and it's snowballed. I don't have a garden. Is the Earth going to stop? NO! I throw my cans and plastics away. Is the Earth going to stop? NO! I'm perfectly content to just live life.

You want to go green and look like a retard? Be my guest. I'll even stand here and watch you. It's free entertainment.

Bottom line? People are going to be extinct FAR before the Earth will see any kind of damage that we have done to it.

Hold on a minute, people. Steve's degree in Environmental Engineering doesn't make him any more of an authority on climate change than my own degree in Mechanical Engineering does. We're both engineers - not climate scientists.

Among the 500 leading researchers, 4.6% have skeptic views toward human-induced global warming while 37% have activist views (seeking action on climate change). The majority of leading researchers have not firmly sided with either camp.

Let's be clear - the scientific debate is NOT whether global warming is occurring - even ExxonMobil now concedes that fact. The debate is whether humans are responsible for global warming and whether we should do something about it.

The article's title statement of "Global Warming is Crap" is contributing to a misconception among the general public that is at odds with the available data - satellite measurements, land-based measurements, ocean measurements, models, etc. There is no conspiracy here - independent meteorological organizations worldwide, even the Chinese - are all reaching the same conclusion. The San Diego Reader interviewed some very knowledgeable people right here at UCSD and SDSU - why give so much airtime to Steve Wampler? He's spouting his mouth "a la Glenn Beck" - I expect better out of the San Diego Reader.

Is there Global Warming? Yes. Are humans resposible? Very good possibility. Do I give a s***? Hell no!

Global Warming enthusiasts are usually Eco-Nazis who are too stupid to realize that the majority of Independent free-thinkers like myself view them as Chicken Littles. "The sky is falling!!!! The sky is falling!!!!" has become "We're all going to suffocate the poor little planet if we don't stop our evil ways!!!!

It's utterly ridiculous that 200+ years of industry can wipe out something that has not only been around for billions of years but lived through alot worse than what humans could ever throw at it. Human arrogance at it's finest.

Hey Zwills, thank you for correcting at least two misconceptions. I'll correct another, a small one:

"The article's title statement of "Global Warming is Crap"

...was meant as an irony. It points critically at the form the so-called "anti-global warming" rhetoric takes, but of course the same people who have nothing to say BUT "Global Warming is Crap" will create a further irony when they show they do not understand that irony, and prove they cannot read.

And they create another bugbear, the 'leftist green-obsessed idiot' who "believes" it, in the same way they create a right-wing rhetoric brimming over with creationist swill--all the while shouting how WE have created the "myths" of global warming AND evolution. Hmmmm, who's swallowing prepackaged rhetoric (and from what sources!!) and fairytales again, now?...

Wikipedia as a reference to support global warming??? You green weenies crack me up. And don't think I'm not for clean air/water/earth and maximizing resource efficiency. Who isn't?

The real "denialists" in this saga are the pinheads like you who are so smug in your ignorance you haven't even looked at the facts. James Hansen and the rest of the twerps at NASA/GISS have now been caught using taxpayer funds to cover their butts when it was discovered they've fudged temperature data regarding warming. Investigations are underway. Michael Mann and his "hockey team" at Penn State are under investigation by the university and the National Academy Of Sciences. Ever heard of "Mike's Nature trick?"

The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, the supposed gold standard of climate research facilities, is now under investigation by the British government for violating England's Freedom of Information Act when they were asked for the data that supports warming. They DELETED hundreds of data records to hide the fact that instead of warming, the earth has been COOLING for the past decade. The foregoing stories have all been dubbed "ClimateGate" due to the scandalous behavior of the principals, among whom are a Who's Who of global warming scaremongers.

And today, ABC News has a report on "GlacierGate", wherein the head of the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has resorted to using opinion pieces from the World Wildlife Fund to scaremonger Global Warming. These claims were not only not peer reviewed, they aren't even science!

The IPCCs Chairman, Nobel laureate - and mechanical engineer - Dr Rajendra Pachauri (who's been lining his own pockets in this scam) is now under fire in his native India, where calls for his immediate resignation are clamoring daily. They don't want any more embarrassment.

Danny, please don't misrepresent my intentions by citing Wikipedia - we both know Wikipedia is not a source of original research. The article I linked is a good summary of the consensus on climate change among scientific organizations of national or international standing... and their sheer number and diversity. Many or most of these various groups do not stand to gain financially in any way by making their opinion statements. This is not a hoax. There is a consensus (not without detractors, but debate is a good thing) precisely because the evidence is real and compelling.

1) NASA "fudged temperature data". This is a new allegation, and one that I could find no support for beyond blogs which appear to be hung up on a lack of understanding of data interpolation between temperature stations. Surely if there was a scandal here, a legitimate news organization (ok, even Fox News?) would have picked up the story?

2) Michael Mann under investigation. Here's what's true - Penn State is reading through his emails with Phil Jones, formerly of the CRU. Mann himself is welcoming the investigation, and none of the leaked emails show any wrongdoing on his part.

5) GlacierGate - Not so much a scandal, but it is an embarrassing prediction. One they've now been forced to retract. The glaciers won't be gone by 2035, but that doesn't change the fact that they are receding rapidly.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Let's keep the debate civil and fair. Cooler heads acknowledge that there is uncertainty in this science, but the best information available (CO2 measurements, temperature measurements, sea ice extent, glacier extent, etc) indicates that we're at risk of affecting our climate in ways that will likely have significant consequences for our future.

The starring role goes to one Zwills, who took the time to post some useful perspective on global warming. The rest is just Pete and I sparring as per usual. Move along now, nothing to see here, folks! ;)

Daniels has it right. It's all about control. The enviro extremists and their co-horts in gov't want control over our lives. The enviros think humans are a plague while the faceless techno-crats think they know better how to run your life. This global warming hysteria is sucking time and money away from real issues we could actually do something about, sop for the enviromental community; let's have more conferences, meetings, summits, Copenhagens, to keep the money flowing. But to do something that actually matters, no thanks, we might have to get our hands dirty.
As for this oft-repeated "fact" that the majority or consensus of scientists say global warming is a looming crisis:
A little over a thousand years ago everyone "knew" (or insert consensus if you like) that the earth was the center of the universe. A little over 500 years ago (pre 1492) everyone "knew" the earth was flat. And now your asking me to believe that man-made global warming is going to raise the earths temperature to unhealthy levels. This prediction is made by the same people who can't tell us with any degree of certainty what the weather will be like next week.
Sorry for being late to the party. Just got done reading the comments in this weeks Reader. I am new to this forum, but have been a long time browser of the Reader. I live out here in tri-county (Santee, Lakeside, El Cajon), own my own business so weekends are the only time I have .

Hey wolfgang, nice to meet you. But check carefully over the posts--nowhere do I espouse what seems to be your position--I do believe, yes, along with standard, accepted science, that global warming is a problem. I do bemoan the fact that, in the eyes of a right-wing public--and like so many other issues--just a vast liberal conspiracy to gain political control and rob taxpayers' pockets. It is reactions like this that hamper and 'retard'-- to vary the usage of one of Pete's favorite words--action on levels from grassroots to industrial and corporate. In fact, arguments like Pete's serve to continually excuse the wanton waste of our environment by corporate entities that just keep dumping in the ocean and sky rather than ceasing to use unnecessary (but cheaper) products.

To say that it is potentially of no consequence whatsoever that at the community and personal level I do not use industrial detergents to clean my home is just ignorant. If we all switched to plant-based surfactant cleaners and boycotted companies using toxic and wasteful plastics, and did not demand such an array of out of season produce on our shelves, or drive mammoth vehicles, we could run irresponsible companies like Johnson & Johnson out of business, and see improvement in the quality of our water and air. Yes, population overgrowth is a huge problem, but again, if we take the advice from Volaire's Candide seriously, we'll start with our own little gardens.

Some things take so little adjustment, and yet seem too much for those who are clearly not just lazy or arrogant, but also afraid to contradict the biblical notion that the earth--just a waiting room--is ours to waste, while we expect to be rewarded with bigger and better pastorals in some unimaginative heaven crafted by corporate greed.

The Earth is the ultimate recycler, SD. When humans are gone, and they will be eventually, the Earth will just take our garbage and do away with it. You expect me to believe that water is becoming scarce? HA! The Earth is covered by water. 2/3's to be exact. You mean to tell me that we as humans can put a man on the moon but can't figure out a way to filter water? O_o

Like I said earlier, I'm not advocating throwing car batteries away or old thermometers away but once again, Liberal Elitists are trying to take this too far. Why? Not for the Earth. It's MUCH easier to go green for the green....

LULZ! I don't know how many times I've posted that over the years in these very discussions. SD will say that he's JUST a comedian not to be taken seriously or that he himself would've said not to take him so serious on this subject. I can't speak for George Carlin and he's dead now but I myself think that he'd tell his detractors to get f***ed.

Humor comes from the greek root humoral medicines. The Greeks believed that a mix of fluids known as humours controlled human health and emotion. Humor also is a root of humility and humbleness. I enjoy comedy because it humiliates and humbles me. There's A LOT of what George said that makes sense.

you can believe global warming or not, but it is really hard to question the results the scientific commmunity at large has produced for hundreds of years. people who could shoot down the stupid conclusions of the religious. the scientific community does miss out ons omet things, and it may take them a while to get it right, but they usually get it right.
the problem with humans is they concentrate everything, and that is pollution. Carbon pollution is a problem, but it is so hard show its effects. saying that you can't understand something's effects and then choosing to do nothing about seems like a crappy way of dealing with these pollution problems.

If you go to the main page, somewhere there is a list of locations where you can pick up the Reader. I imagine that in your area, along Washington would be the place to go--there are a few spots near Mercy Hospital to grab a copy, as well as at your liquor store near Goldfinch, I think. Cheers!

Good for you, Pete, for posting something halfway intelligible, if rather abbreviated, of the etymology of the word "humor." There is quite a lot more to it than Carlin relates, and I invite you to uncover its extensive history in relation to multiple fields of study. Your quoting it is quite ironic, in its relation to the hubris of claiming to have knowledge you do not, to wit:

"The Earth is the ultimate recycler, SD. When humans are gone, and they will be eventually, the Earth will just take our garbage and do away with it."

Oh, can I quote this as coming from a verifiable scientific source, Pete, or are you just spewing your own brand of pollution again?

Carlin touches on it briefly in his routine. The shoes on my feet will be just a trace of humanity's existance in a mere 5,000+ years. A drop in a vastly HUGE bucket.

As for Global Warming, KUUUUUUUUUSI's John Coleman(A Chicago boy like myself)will be re-airing his special on this subject at 9:00 on Thursday. I've seen it. He basically lays waste and torches the theory of an ever rising climate...

Uh, I think I will go with more reputable scientific sources than KUUUUUSI's good ole glam weather boy, thx. Make sure YOU tune in and check out whose pockets he's currently habitating before you swallow it wholesale ;)

Don't worry folks, even if prop 23 passes there is a safe haven right here in San Diego County. My 18 year-old nephew, an amateur meteorologist, has been monitoring and logging hourly temperatures on his electronic weather station at his home in La Mesa for the last 6 years. He has analyzed and graphed his data and can find NO upward trend in temperature. So, "global" warming is obviously taking place everywhere on the globe EXCEPT La Mesa, California. I expect La Mesa's property values to skyrocket as word gets out so make your move now! Viva La Mesa!

Don't worry folks, even if prop 23 passes there is a safe haven right here in San Diego County. My 18 year-old nephew, an amateur meteorologist, has been monitoring and logging hourly temperatures on his electronic weather station at his home in La Mesa for the last 6 years. He has analyzed and graphed his data and can find NO upward trend in temperature.

I cannot tell if you're making a funny or not, but if you DO have a nephew who is doing this, that is pretty cool IMO!